Page 384 - sense-and-sensibility

‘Upon my soul it is,’—was his answer, with a warmth
which brought all the former Willoughby to her remem-
brance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere.
‘If that is all, you may be satisfied already,— for Mari-
anne DOES—she has LONG forgiven you.’
‘Has she?’—he cried, in the same eager tone.— ‘Then she
has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she
shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds.—
NOW will you listen to me?’
Elinor bowed her assent.
‘I do not know,’ said he, after a pause of expectation on
her side, and thoughtfulness on his own,—‘how YOU may
have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what dia-
bolical motive you may have imputed to me.— Perhaps you
will hardly think the better of me,—it is worth the trial how-
ever, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became
intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other
view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly
while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleas-
antly than I had ever done before. Your sister’s lovely person
and interesting manners could not but please me; and her
behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind—It is
astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what SHE
was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at
first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Care-
less of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement,
giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in
the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my
power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design